Quotes from some speakers

Tomiwa Aladekomo (Big Cabal Media, CEO) on Tech trends

Last year, there was an accelerator for a lot of digital trends and for a lot of tech trends. The coronavirus and the lockdown forced a lot more people online, so it accelerated things like the number of people online… it accelerated people sort of pushing on to the big platforms. Whether it is platforms like Spotify, YouTube, which allows creators to get paid or you are thinking about platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which attracts a lot of audience to themselves, and become sort of intermediary between your relationship as a creator and the audience.

You want to be careful with platforms because a platform like Facebook has shown us that they are happy to change the rules anytime. So, you come into the game, you start to build your audience on Instagram, and one day they say, ‘we are only going to show a tiny portion of the audience you have, your content’, and that’s a bit tricky.

Dakore Egbuson-Akande

I want to encourage young creatives; it’s a very competitive industry, but you’re also coming in at a great time. Back in 1999, there was only one channel, and that was the marketer. These guys sold spare parts, but they saw a gap, and decided to fill empty video cassettes. The industry has since evolved. At that time, there were huge gaps: sound was a big problem, but we grew from that, and over the years the movie industry has employed so many people. We have shown resilience, and we have come from a place where we didn’t even have any identity other than what was imposed by colonialists, to actually having a voice and telling our own stories. We’re not all about war and famine.

The creative industry does not exist in a vacuum, and we are products of our environment. It’s chaotic, it’s tough to make a living in Nigeria, but the fact that we’ve been able to create an industry that actually employs people – it’s the second highest employer of labour after agriculture – shows you the power of the creative industry; it should not be ignored. Also, we shouldn’t be used as cheap conversation fodder. Government shouldn’t just say “yea, that’s Nollywood”; are they making investments? Are they implementing policies that will help the industry grow? That’s what we need, not necessarily money to shoot films. We need infrastructure.

Olorunnimbe Idris

(Founder, Temple Management Company)

Let your friends be your friends. You need to learn to separate business and friendship. People mix it successfully, but there are more people who get burnt from it than people who succeed. Your friends can be your moral compass, and to keep you grounded and advise you. Even if he was a lawyer, he’s probably not the best lawyer…he might overvalue or undervalue you.

Artistes on being local champions (importance of building a local fan base)

Mercy Eke

(Reality star and businesswoman)

Where I am today is through my hard work. I didn’t just win and rest on my oars, because I know that my journey has just started. It’s important to strike a balance between being famous and maintaining a fan base. When it comes to relating with fans, you need to have a product, something of value because you can think of building a fan base. It’s a give-and-take situation. A lot of people just want to be famous, but they don’t have any direction. Even with the fame from Big Brother, I’m still taking on many projects: I have real estate, I have my M&M luxury, I also supply diesel to a lot of companies, people don’t know about this. I could have gone on business trips, but no, I am taking risks in various business ventures. This is where the fans come in: they support my luxury business because I sell what they love and what they can connect with.

Leveraging on fans is providing them something they can work with. My fans push me a lot, they remind me to be more consistent in putting out content, and whenever I drop something, they all rally around to support me.

Iyin Aboyeji

On innovation on collaboration between tech and entertainment

…We speak the same language because our businesses are all coming from natural creativity and human capital. We are not oil barons, we are not government entrepreneurs, we are pure talents in our world, so, I think there is more we can do together… I am super excited. Nigeria to the world.  We have all had a big year: tech, unicorns, Burna Boy, Wizkid. So we have all had a good year, and it is a good time to celebrate the progress, and then (also) bring in the next generation.

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